On Gaien Higashi Dori

Life from the Raglan Road of Tokyo

Wednesday, October 15

Getting Closer?

This afternoon, Tokyo was hit by a very scary earthquake. The scariest in my seven years here by far. Our building shook violently, and the magnitude seemed to be building. Fear registered on the normally placid faces of my Japanese colleagues. Books started falling from the shelves. People stood up from their desks. Some were saying, "tateyure da ne," which can be roughly translated as "the shakes are vertical." This apparently is the dangerous kind of earthquake. I got up and walked down the six flights of stairs to the ground. My hands were sweating and I was shaking in tune with the earthquake. Without being too dramatic, it felt like a near death experience. Definitely time to get out of this place.

Gaien Higashi Dori means Outer Gardens (of the Meiji Shrine) Ave. East. It is one of the beautiful big leafy avenues that winds through the center of Tokyo.
Raglan Road is a poem and song about love and loss by one of the finest Irish poets of the twentieth century, Patrick Kavanagh.